Programmers need to realize that they can't naturally
design a good UI and that it should be given to a designer.
All major open source projects should look for a UI guy for
everything.

Let the hackers code. That's what they do best. Let the
designers design. Or at the very least, O'Reilly should
release a UI book. Make it under the GPL and release it to
all the hackers so Linux wouldn't be such an eyesore as far
as UI. This isn't flamebait but, my honest opinion.

I book would help but, Linux will still be lacking
until
every major project has at least one person just for UI (if
not a whole team on this). User Interface is just another
variable to think about. Coders already have enough work.
You know all of Microsofts products must have some UI
people. You know Apple is packed to the gills with UI
people.

Consistancy would also be nice. Consistancy beyond just
a
set of icons to use as buttons. Consistancy in dialog size,
composition and location. Things should work the same.
Most normal people can't grasp computer concepts that fast
so, if we make dialogs and menus that work similarly across
all (or most) major

I see so many different things that are missing from the
whole GNU spectrum. Mostly little things but, in the end,
that can end up being a major stumbling block for Linux and
GNU.

I also want to see more open source software in
Windows. Yes, windows. Last time I remembered, windows
software wasn't banned from being in the GNU, though you
would think that from all the bias and propaganda that
surrounds Linux and the BSDs.

Lite Step
(www.litestep.net), perfect example of a
GREAT project with almost zero visisbility in the
Linux/Open Source community.

Projects like this need to be visible and talked about.
They need to be supported and coded. Linux coders can code
in Windows. They can learn about how windows works. Like
it or not, most of the world runs on windows 95. That
isn't going to change soon. The sooner people realize that
instead of living in a pipe dream that Linux is going to
sweep the world all of a sudden instead of a slow gradual
acceptace that will have set-backs and may never totally
outshine windows.

Linux might not win. Linux might just be useful and
part of the solution for an end user. An end user. A
novel idea. Someone who just uses the OS and the tools and
doesn't hack code! Is this so bad? At least 90% of people
will never even think of touching source code. They aren't
bad people, they just have stuff to do.

Linux and GNU needs to start tailoring itself to them.
If Linux is going to take over the world, it must
understand the world it's going to take over. Alot of
coders may never want that. Mainstream. Isn't that a
scary thought? If kernel traffic got bogged down with
stupid questions now, think if Joe Q. Public was just a
click away from ranting about every little problem to the
likes of Alan Cox and Linus himself.

Bill Gates has a staff of people to answer his e-mail.
Linus still hand reads all his as does almost all linux
developers. I say that Linux isn't quite ready to be
mainstream. Hackers aren't quite ready to be rock stars.
They may end up not even wanting the fame and all the
stupid things that come with it.

This is just open ranting now. Unorganized but,
hopefully you see that this isn't flamebait but, rather
things that I think that the community needs to talk
about. It you are interested in some dialog about this, e-
mail me. I'm not here to be flamed and all flames will not
recive any reply.

Hmm, my first diary post. Well, a little about
myself.
I'm a graphic design and computer science double major...
(Using the gimp and coding it... Coding it eventually but,
not right now).

I am currently working, going to school, having a sort
of social
life, reading slashdot and advogato everyday and somewhere
in there learning C++, perl and Python. Not much luck on
getting the languages down or school that much but, my
social life is probably the brightest it's ever been. I
don't miss slashdot except maybe on the weekends when I go
out. Hmm, if life was just slashdot, advogato, and
socializing, I would be very sucessful.

But, I'm not. Anyways, I'm at my job right now.
I'm
making a website. Using the boss's windows machine and I'm
using the Gimp. The windows port by Tor is just sweet. It
crashes every now and then but, that's understandable.
It's EXTREMELY usable. That's all I use anymore.

After 1.2 is done and out the door, I have some
great
ideas for the gimp as far as UI. I want to a UI guy after
I get out with both of my degrees (5 years from now
UHHH!!). Most of them have deal with making the Gimp more
attractive to Graphic Designers who ultimately will use the
program anyways. You want to get people away from
Photoshop and Corel Draw/Paint.

Paint looks like it's going to be on linux desktops
soon
(as in 6-12 months) and I'm sure that Photoshop isn't more
than two years away. In this time, Gimp needs to become
easier for the ex-Photoshop Graphic Designer. Someone
needs to make a Glade plug-in for the Gimp so one can
easily make scripts without haveing to go through so much
code. A kinda mix and match type thing. Using the new
actions/steps dialog that I saw in the slides from GUADEC.

You should be able to experiment with-in Gimp and
all of
a sudden when you make this Super-Cool effect that shows
just how sweet of a designer (or how lucky of a bastard)
you are, you can just say take the last 15 steps and make
that into a script. Then this script maker should take all
the steps and automatically make them with the settings
that you did as default but, build a dialog with sliders,
options and the rest.

Now you have a dialog a mile long with 15 stages.
You
should be easily be able to cut that down. It should take
me a person that knows Gimp pretty well and knows a bit
about programming about 15-30 min. to make a script from
scratch. It should take someone that isn't so adept no
more than an hour.

Think of the power that something like this would
have!
Having designers in-house just making scripts and then soon
all of the designers have this power. Scriptablity is so
powerful but, it never has been leveraged as much it should
in Gimp. Make it easier to make a script, more scripts are
made. A script is the easiest way to get a wow out of a
photoshop person.

Another problem I have with Gimp is the dialogs.
They
are HUGE. There has to be some way of condesing them. I'm
working at 1024x768 and it seems cramped. This is
rediculous. Coming back to Photoshop, they found that
smaller dialogs are better. Multiple sets of info in the
same space. It should come up in context when needed.

When working in multiple images, I switch images and
the
layer dialog switches to the layers of that images when I
press ctrl or something. That should be automatic or at
least an option to be automatic. More things like that.
Like how the tools dialog switches. The tools dialog
however needs to remain a constant size. This is very
annoying if I have to move it or something to see some of
the information on there because before it was just a
little thing and now it's double it's size.

Dialogs should snap to corners and each other. I
don't
know if this is already true but, image windows should auto-
size intelligently and be aware of the dialog boxes, where
and how big they are. Obviously, like Photoshop. PS has
been around for at least 12 years of solid heavy
development. Gimp should use some of this UI wisdom to
it's advantage.

There are plenty of other ideas that I'm playing
with in
my head so, keep tuned to this diary if you want to hear
them or you can always e-mail me at gimptek@yahoo.com.
Yeah, it's yahoo but, it works.

New Advogato Features

New HTML Parser: The long-awaited libxml2 based HTML parser
code is live. It needs further work but already handles most
markup better than the original parser.